Bill Conlin: JoePa has to show he can still bounce back

TAMPA, Fla. - Matt McGloin wasn't supposed to play much football for Penn State this year. The former West Scranton High quarterback walked on as a freshman last year, and even that was a mild upset.

But Joe Paterno kept Matt around because he had some attitude, a certain "I'm gonna show you" fire that trumped his lack of arm strength and speed of foot.

He might have reminded JoePa of a certain skinny, rag-armed ex-GI who overachieved at quarterback and safety for Brown University in the two-platoon days when the limited substitution rules forced quarterbacks to also play defense. That quarterback was himself, the overachiever of whom a famous sports columnist named Stanley Woodward once wrote, "Joe Paterno can't run and he can't pass; all he can do is think and win . . . "

McGloin started 2010 as a redshirt sophomore. When the Lions opened the season, the 6-1, 209-pound athlete was No. 3 on the depth chart behind true freshman Rob Bolden, surprise winner of the Happy Valley QB sweepstakes. Bolden edged running QB Kevin Newsome and McGloin amid what was said to be a fierce coaching-staff debate.

So, in something of a surprise, when Bolden suffered a concussion in the Minnesota game, his replacement was not the 6-2, 225-pound Newsome. It was McGloin.

Matt played well enough to pass Penn State to a 14-0 lead at Ohio State before the floodgates opened and Terrelle Pryor and Co. steamrolled Paterno's young and outclassed team. He played well enough to throw 14 touchdowns as the Lions became bowl-eligible, which is BCS shorthand for PFM: Payday For Mediocrity.

In the Outback Bowl here on New Year's Day, in the Tampa Bay Bucs' Raymond James Stadium, Matt McGloin played like a walk-on in an error-pocked contest that more resembled the annual spring scrimmage than a second-tier bowl game. It was a game redeemed only by the gorgeous weather and some inspired individual efforts.

McGloin completed 22 passes for 354 yards in 7-6 Penn State's go-from-ahead, 37-24 loss to 8-5 Florida.

Trouble was, Matt completed just 17 of those passes to receivers in blue jerseys. The other five were caught by defenders in orange, blue and white uniforms. And they were returned for 143 yards, including an 80-yard pick six by Outback Player of the Game Ahmad Black, anointed by retiring Gators coach Urban Meyer as "the best safety in college football."

The story within the story on a day when McGloin ran for one TD was that he easily could have been picked off another half-dozen times by a secondary so injured that Meyer said, "I considered sending some of my receivers back there."

Black's second pick of a game in which he also had five solo tackles and an assist, came with Penn State driving for a possible go-ahead score. They were on the Gators' 25 with the clock winding toward a minute and the Lions down 30-24 when Black jumped a quick out route on the 20 and took it to the house.

Not that Paterno, an is-he-or-isn't-he forum favorite, needs any more controversy, but he's got another one on his hands, like it or not. Another big, fat QB contra that will swirl around McGloin and redshirt freshman Paul Jones, a Steve McNair-sized athlete with a huge arm. Bolden reportedly told quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno after the game that he will transfer. Newsome did not travel to the Outback Bowl and it is assumed he will transfer. Paterno declined to discuss the possibility, just as he turned another deaf ear - pun intended - to questions about rumors of his retirement.

JoePa has always been a glass half-full guy when it comes to critiquing his players. Saturday, through semantic magic, that half-full glass overflowed.

The comic highlight of his postgame press conference came when a writer said, "Joe, McGloin did throw five interceptions and you said he played good . . . "

Paterno cut him off.

"I didn't say that at all," he said. "I said I didn't blame him. Hey, you ought to check your hearing."

The liveliest exchange of his presser was not included on the transcript.

Since the hearing of the 84-year-old coach has been part of the Joe Must Go/Joe Must Stay debate, his rebuke drew a salvo of guffaws.

But a 7-6 record by a Penn State team that was pounded by Big Ten rivals Ohio State, Iowa and Michigan State is not a laughing matter in Happy Valley.

It is now recruiting season. Joe no longer makes house calls. For decades, his presence in the kitchens of the football hotbeds of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Maryland, complimenting mom's pasta and preaching the value of a Penn State degree, was a tremendous edge. Now the institutions he once out recruited are playing the age card as trump.

He is mostly revered, but at the same time, the success of his program, the guarantee of an annual trip to a bowl, often a major one, made him more and more vulnerable to the mantra of one of his Brooklyn pals, Al Davis:

"Just win, baby."

That's what it will come down to in 2011 for Joe Paterno, for Matt McGloin and for the Father Time-warped keepers of the Nittany Lion flame.

Send e-mail to bill1chair@aol.com.

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